|
6496389
|
I am not sentimental about kids. Little monsters, most of them, who don't civilize until they are grown and sometimes not then.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
43b6c40
|
There are a dozen different ways of delivering destruction in impersonal wholesale, via ships and missiles of one sort or another, catastrophes so widespread, so unselective, that the war is over because that nation or planet has ceased to exist. What we do is entirely different. We make war as personal as a punch in the nose. We can be selective, applying precisely the required amount of pressure at the specified point at a designated time..
|
|
war
precision
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
fb7db4a
|
Time was when I was immune to emotional shocks. But as I get older, I don't get tougher; I get softer.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
305c8c6
|
Study it yourself. If I told you, you would not know; you simply would have been told.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
d0dcc19
|
But I have no beliefs. Belief gets in the way of learning.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
77d64d9
|
That's a subject as safe as being in favor of Christmas.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
e86ece0
|
We have such a theory now; we can solve any moral problem, on any level. Self-interest, love of family, duty to country, responsibility toward the human race--we are even developing an exact ethic for extra-human relations. But all moral problems can be illustrated by one misquotation: 'Greater love hath no man than a mother cat dying to defend her kittens.' Once you understand the problem facing that cat and how she solved it, you will the..
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
408b40d
|
What did I want? I wanted a Roc's egg. I wanted a harem loaded with lovely odalisques less than the dust beneath my chariot wheels, the rust that never stained my sword. I wanted raw red gold in nuggets the size of your fist, and feed that lousy claim jumper to the huskies! I wanted to get up feeling brisk and go out and break some lances, then pick a likely wench for my droit du seigneur - I wanted to stand up to the Baron and dare him to ..
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
5c1b4c5
|
If you load a mud foot down with a lot of gadgets that he has to watch, somebody a lot more simply equipped--say with a stone ax--will sneak up and bash his head in while he is trying to read a vernier.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
856c587
|
Call it that if you like. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
8e50463
|
Is a virus self-aware? Nyet. How about oyster? I doubt it. A cat? Almost certainly. A human? Don't know about you, tovarishch, but I am.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
8ea4c21
|
When did you ever worry about offending me?' 'Always, Man, once I understood that you could be offended.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
dc8d440
|
writing is a legal way of avoiding work without actually stealing and one that doesn't take any talent or training
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
a0975ea
|
No, I hadn't made any decision; my mouth was leading its own life.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
8e15e60
|
You can die anyplace. They've never managed to regulate that.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
1acb69a
|
I never do anything I don't want to. Nor does anyone, but in my case I know it.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
d986ac7
|
Nobody paid attention; they walked around or stepped over - except one woman carrying a baby, who stopped, kicked him carefully in face, then went down ramp.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
8a04e4f
|
It was all very puzzling--both that Jill could smell still more like Jill... and that Dorcas should wish to smell like Jill when she already smelled like herself... and that Jubal would say that Dorcas smelled like a cat when she did not. There was a cat who lived on the place (not as a pet, but as co-owner); on rare occasions it came to the house and deigned to accept a handout. The cat and Mike had grokked each other at once, and Mike had..
|
|
martian
grok
smell
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
45a09ce
|
It comes from exercising care in the choice of parents.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
227a3e0
|
These people who deal in fancification to fool the public think nobody can read and write but themselves.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
6ecfa6b
|
I know where I came from--but where did all you zombies come from?
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
ec633ce
|
I came by my decrepitude the hard way and I propose to enjoy it.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
f3d4bf3
|
the greatest danger to man in space was man himself.
|
|
space
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
bbbb4e1
|
Being kissed by Wyoming Knott is more definite than being married to most women.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
f658f65
|
was no such thing as a "dangerous weapon," there were only dangerous men."
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
4e98aad
|
There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." Free will and predestination in one sentence and both true."
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
da4025d
|
Mmm, one does have to learn to look at art. But it's up to the artist to use language that can be understood. Most of these jokers don't want to use language you and I can learn; they would rather sneer because we 'fail' to see what they are driving at. If anything. Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
89b138a
|
Customs, morals--is there a difference?
|
|
society
morals
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
cdd0c18
|
Do you know your Bible?' 'Uh, not very well.' 'It merits study, it contains very practical advice for most emergencies.
|
|
emergencies
studies
the-bible
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
0cb6622
|
Private,' he said firmly. 'Family matter. Go have a drink.' 'Whose family?' 'A death in yours, if you insist.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
a819c82
|
The fact that he had broken his oath more times than there were years intervening did not trouble him; his was not a small mind bothered by logic and consistency.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
64ccea9
|
Forgiveness and thanks go hand in hand.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
c9c2e53
|
He] stopped long enough to remind himself that this baby innocent was neither babyish nor innocent -- was in fact sophisticated in a culture which he was beginning to realize, however dimly, was far in advance of human culture in some very mysterious ways... and that these naive remarks came from a superman -- or what would do in place of a 'superman' for the time being.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
5e5763e
|
Sit back down--and for God's sake quit trying to be as nasty as I am; you don't have my years of practice.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
13b3cdb
|
A poisonous snake is not dangerous, not any more than a loaded gun is dangerous--in each case, if you handle it properly. The thing that made that coral snake dangerous was that I hadn't known what it was, what it could do. If, in my ignorance, I had handled it carelessly, it would have killed me as casually and as innocently as a kitten scratches.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
ff50b33
|
The very idea that the Chief would let anybody expose himself to danger in his place is-well, I ought to slap your face; that's what I ought to do!
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
91dc9fb
|
Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is about eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried. Democracy's worst faults is that its leaders are likely to reflect the faults and virtues of their constituents - a depressingly low level, but what else can you expect?
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
1c867af
|
Allie, what do the Stars tell me to do? You know I don't understand the scientific part.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
a2c996f
|
Congratulations! A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
974320d
|
We pray for one last landing On the globe that gave us birth; Let us rest our eyes on fleecy skies And the cool, green hills of Earth.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
a9160f6
|
most neuroses can be traced to the unhealthy habit of wallowing in the troubles of five billion strangers.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
561ff31
|
Still rarer is the man who thinks habitually, who applies reason, rather than habit pattern, to all his activity. Unless he masques himself, his is a dangerous life; he is regarded as queer, untrustworthy, subversive of public morals; he is a pink monkey among brown monkeys -- a fatal mistake. Unless the pink monkey can dye himself brown before he is caught.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
9194e1e
|
What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudo-intellectual masturbation . . . whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce--render emotional-his audience, each time.
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |
|
02baeee
|
A man can face known danger. But the unknown frightens him. We
|
|
|
Robert A. Heinlein |